Uber is expanding beyond ride-hailing and adding a series of new products to its app to cover all the ways people move around cities, including bikes, paying and booking tickets for buses and rail, and even car rental through a partnership with Getaround.
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced the series of new products and partnerships Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Khosrowshahi, who took the helm several months after co-founder Travis Kalanick resigned, said the aim is to reduce individual car ownership.
It’s also a strategic move aimed at long-term survival. Users can now move throughout a city, or even between them, using the Uber app.
Uber announced April 9 that it acquired Jump, an electric “dockless” bike share service. Jump bikes are integrated with the GPS and payment system—unlike docked bike share programs that put that tech in its docking stations. Uber and Jump already had a relationship. In February, Uber added an option in its app that lets users reserve and rent Jump bikes in San Francisco.
Uber’s Khosrowshahi announced Wednesday that the Jump bike rental feature has been expanded to Washington, D.C.
Uber will also launch Uber Rent, its first car-sharing product, beginning with San Francisco. The Uber Rent feature, which is in partnership with car-sharing company Getaround, will let users find cars for short-term rentals using the Uber app. Uber Rent will be available later this month.
Uber has also partnered with Masabi, which has developed a public transit mobile ticketing platform, that will let Ubr users book and use transit tickets in its app. In other words, users will be able to use their Uber app to hail a ride to a public transit station and then use the same app to buy a ticket for a bus or train.
Uber didn’t say when this book-and-buy transit rides option would be available in the Uber app. For now, the two companies will work integrating the Masabi platform into the Uber app and hope to have a product ready later this year. Of course, a natural first step would be for the feature to work in cities that Masabi already has a partnership with.
